Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) recently reduced its syllabus to ease the stress of students and teachers due to delay in the academic year due to Covid-19. The changes have received mixed opinions, adding to the history of syllabus designing and modification in India.
Crux of the Matter
CBSE Syllabus Reduced CBSE recently reduced 30% of the syllabus for the classes 9 to 12 for the academic year 2020-21. The topics removed from the syllabus would be “explained” to students in classes, but no questions would be asked from it in the examination. The government has labelled it a one-time measure, aiming to reduce the burden of examination from students as well as teachers.
Each of the topics that have been wrongly mentioned in media as deleted have been covered under the Alternative Academic Calendar of NCERT which is already in force for all the affiliated schools of the board. Anurag Tripathi, CBSE Secretary
Removed Topics Following major topics have been removed from respective classes and subjects: Class 9
Mathematics: Triangles, and Euclid’s geometry.
Social Science: Complete chapters on population, food security, and democratic rights.
English: Use of passive voice prepositions.
Class 10
Science: Metals and non-metals, heredity and evolution, types of currents, and domestic electric circuits.
Hindi: “Stree Siksha ke Virodhi Kutarko ka Khandan” chapter by Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi.
Mathematics: Area of a triangle and frustum of a cone.
Class 11
Political Science: Federalism, secularism, citizenship, and nationalism.
Business Studies: GST.
Geography: Climate, natural hazards, and disasters.
Class 12
Business Studies: Demonetization.
Political Science: Planning commission and five-year plans, India relations with its neighbours.
Physics: Carbon resistors and radioactivity.
Blast From The Past – Changes In Syllabus Across Boards
1960s: NCERT historians like Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra and Bipan Chandra accused of “Marxist” bias in history textbooks.
1969: Controversy over Aryan theory in NCERT syllabus.
2006: NCERT removes “objectionable” portrayal of Guru Gobind Singh after protests by Sikh community.
2012: NCERT removed cartoon on Dr. Ambedkar after mass protests.
2016: Rajasthan board remove short stories of Ismat Chugtai and Hari Shankar Parsai.
2017: Maharashtra board replaced chapters on the Mughal dynasty with those of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
Problems Going Online While several schools and colleges have initiated “online classes”, students and teachers are experiencing difficulties related to connectivity and prior experience of e-teaching.
Only 47% of village households receive electricity for 12+ hours per day.
50% internet penetration in India; as of 2020 India has around 60-70 crore active internet users as per different sources
40.2 % of mobile data users face poor connectivity issues, with the number increasing to 53% for home broadband users
Several teachers are using online teaching method for the first time. Consequently, working on audio/video presentations and lesson planning is adding to their burden.
Govt of India reduced expenditure on e-learning from ₹604 crores in 2019-20 to ₹469 crores in 2020-21.
Curiopedia
In 1929, the government of India set up a joint Board named “Board of High School and Intermediate Education, Rajputana”. This included Ajmer, Merwara, Central India, and Gwalior. In 1952, it became the “Central Board of Secondary Education”.
The Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan is a system of premier central government schools in India and one of the world’s largest chains of schools with more than 1200 schools. All the schools are affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is an autonomous organisation of the Government of India which was established in 1961 as a literary, scientific, and charitable Society under the Societies’ Registration Act.
Curated Coverage
Comments